Justice Department and Rule of Law

President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Justice Department’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division, Colin McDonald, told senators at his Feb. 25, 2026 confirmation hearing that he would prosecute cases "without fear or favor" even as lawmakers pressed him on whether the unit will be insulated from direct White House influence. The division is controversial because DOJ already has a Criminal Division that handles fraud, and Vice President JD Vance initially said this new assistant attorney general would report directly to the White House before the administration backtracked and now says McDonald will answer to the deputy attorney general. The hearing came a day after Trump’s State of the Union, where he declared a "war on fraud" and singled out Minnesota’s Somali community as having "pillaged" billions, citing a federal estimate that half or more of roughly $18 billion in federal funds for 14 Minnesota programs since 2018 may have been stolen. McDonald repeatedly declined to say whether he would obey a presidential order to open a particular investigation, insisting only that he follows the facts and the law, while senators raised concerns about how much oversight Vance will exercise. If confirmed, McDonald would inherit sprawling fraud probes in Minnesota just as the U.S. attorney’s office there has been hollowed out by resignations tied to controversial ICE shootings, raising practical questions about who will actually bring these cases and whether the new division will target fraud even‑handedly or mainly where it fits the administration’s political narrative.